East Lynne eBook

Miss Carlyle tore the paper to atoms and scattered
it. Mr. Dill afterward made copies from memory,
and sent them to the journal offices. But let
that pass.

“I will never forgive him,” she deliberately
uttered, “and I will never forgive or tolerate
her.”

CHAPTER XIV.

THE EARL’S ASTONISHMENT.

The announcement of the marriage in the newspapers
was the first intimation of it Lord Mount Severn received.
He was little less thunderstruck than Miss Corny,
and came steaming to England the same day, thereby
missing his wife’s letter, which gave her
version of the affair. He met Mr. Carlyle and
Lady Isabel in London, where they were staying at
one of the west-end hotels—­only for a day
or two, however, for they were going further.
Isabel was alone when the earl was announced.

“What is the meaning of this, Isabel?”
began he, without the circumlocution of greeting.
“You are married?”

“Yes,” she answered, with her pretty,
innocent blush. “Some time ago.”

“And to Carlyle, the lawyer! How did it
come about?”

Isabel began to think how it did come about, sufficiently
to give a clear answer. “He asked me,”
she said, “and I accepted him. He came to
Castle Marling at Easter, and asked me then. I
was very much surprised.”

The earl looked at her attentively. “Why
was I kept in ignorance of this, Isabel?”

“I did not know you were kept in ignorance of
it. Mr. Carlyle wrote to you, as did Lady Mount
Severn.”

Lord Mount Severn was a man in the dark, and looked
like it. “I suppose this comes,”
soliloquized he, aloud, “of your father’s
having allowed the gentleman to dance daily attendance
at East Lynne. And so you fell in love with him.”

“Indeed, no!” answered she, in an amused
tone. “I never thought of such a thing
as falling in love with Mr. Carlyle.”

“Then don’t you love him?” abruptly
asked the earl.

“No!” she whispered, timidly; “but
I like him much—­oh, very much! And
he is so good to me!”

The earl stroked his chin and mused. Isabel had
destroyed the only reasonable conclusion he had been
able to come to as to the motives for the hasty marriage.
“If you do not love Mr. Carlyle, how comes it
that you are so wise in the distinction between ‘liking’
and ‘love?’ It cannot be that you love
anybody else?”

The question turned home, and Isabel turned crimson.
“I shall love my husband in time,” was
all she answered, as she bent her head, and played
nervously with her watch chain.

“My poor child!” involuntarily exclaimed
the earl. But he was one who liked to fathom
the depth of everything. “Who has been staying
at Castle Marling since I left?” he asked sharply.